I finally got around to writing a new book review, and I picked the most eagerly awaited one that has disappointed fans right and left. No, not “Suicide Squad.” That’s a movie. This is a book. Of a play. About a world first introduced in a series of books, which then became movies. Got it? Go check out “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ gets big sales, big complaints” at news-journalonline.com to see what I thought. TL;DR: “Dude, it’s a play.” (Photo by AP)
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Orlando is rich with culture, loaded with theaters and museums and artists and performers of all types, and even in that crowd Phantasmagoria stands out. Cheerfully horrifying, they perform tales of the macabre and it’s never entirely certain the entire cast will make it to the end. And then sometimes they bring horror to little children. Today at the DeLand Public Library they performed “PHANTASMAGORIA’S Official Book Of Frightening Little Children (Or Simply Just Amusing Them) Tales of Silly, Witty, Little Whimsies” for a roomful of kids ready to hear fairy tales, a Lewis Carroll poem (guess which one) and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The children seemed mostly unterrified, gleefully yelling out sounds effects and phrases as needed.
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Oh, There the hell is Matt. Over 10 years ago, a guy named Matt quit his job to wander the world and he started making videos of him doing his silly dance. Everywhere, in dozens of different countries. The video went insanely viral. Then he got sponsored to travel the world and do it again. And again. Today he was in Orlando, where lots of people gathered at Lake Eola to dance badly with him for the hell of it. Also to raise money; he had buttons and stickers for sale and half the proceeds went to OneOrlando. And yes, I danced. Horribly. In such a way that trained EMT personnel, had any been around, would have rushed over right away. But it was fun anyway. We got there an hour early, and by 10 till various brightly dressed people were wandering about, never realizing that the “Where the hell is Matt?” question was so literal… Right at 11 he showed up, dragging rolling luggage. Matt Harding is very tall, you notice that right off, and he’s pretty much what you’d expect from someone who spends his time traveling to different countries and doing a silly dance on them. He’s […]
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Like almost all pop culture phenomenons lately, I gave “Hamilton” some time before I went all in so my opinions come months after everyone else already fell in love with it. My friends have been listening to it nonstop and almost overnight many of my favorite podcasts couldn’t go 20 minutes without mentioning it at least once. So, because I want to continue understanding pop culture references for the next 20 years, I gave it a shot. No expectations: Hip hop and rap do nothing for me, and I’ve never been a history buff. But I can listen to anything once. That was a week ago. I’ve been playing it nonstop since, and reading articles about it and absorbing the book of the play and watching the #Ham4Ham videos and generally being just as addicted to it as you probably are. I liked it, quite a bit more than I thought I would. I’m sure it will get out of my head eventually, possibly with the aid of a brick, but until then if you talk to me I’ll listen and answer but in my head I’ll probably be singing. Just FYI. The performances are amazing. The songs are brilliant, building […]
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